Jewish settlers disrupt Palestinian olive harvest

HEBRON: Jewish settlers punched and kicked two news photographers and a British woman helping Palestinians pick olives in a West Bank town on Saturday and Israeli police responded by stopping the harvest.

The scuffle in the town of Hebron was the latest of a series of efforts by settlers living in the occupied land to disrupt an annual harvest critical to many Palestinians' livelihoods.

Witnesses and Reuters television footage showed four Jewish settlers headed into a grove next to a Jewish enclave where a few dozen Israeli, Palestinian and foreign peace activists were helping to pick olives.

The settlers punched and kicked Abed Hashlamoun, a photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), leaving a bloody scratch beneath one eye. They similarly assaulted his brother, Reuters photographer Nayef Hashlamoun, who suffered no injuries. Janet Benvie, a British activist with Christian Peacemaker Teams, sustained a scratch on her lip after a scuffle with a settler who had grabbed a camera.

West Bank, Sunday, Reuters